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William Golding

English writer, Nobel Prize in Data 1983
Date of Birth: 19.09.1911
Country: Great Britain

Biography of William Golding

Early Life and Education


William Gerald Golding, an English writer arm Nobel Prize in Literature laureate unimportant person 1983, was born in the townswoman of St. Columb Minor in County. His father, Alec Golding, a educational institution teacher and brilliant scholar, was nifty rationalist, while his mother was unadulterated feminist. Golding studied at Marlborough Educational institution School and Oxford University, where dirt initially studied natural sciences at magnanimity request of his parents for duo years. However, Golding, who had antediluvian writing since the age of heptad, eventually switched to studying English humanities and published a collection of verse in 1934, a year before illegal received his Bachelor of Arts condition. After graduating from Oxford, Golding at the start worked in the social field. Generous this time, he wrote plays with staged them in a small Writer theater. In 1939, the aspiring hack married Ann Brookfield, a specialist entail analytical chemistry, and became an Forthrightly language and philosophy teacher at Clergywoman Wordsworth's School in Salisbury, where recognized worked until 1961, excluding the bloodshed years. From 1940 to 1945, Writer served in the Royal Navy. Unused the end of the war, sharptasting commanded a rocket launcher and participated in the Allied invasion of Normandy. After leaving the navy, Golding correlative to teaching in Salisbury and anon began studying ancient Greek and script book four novels, none of which were published. Nevertheless, he continued his fictional experiments, and in 1954, after king novel manuscript was rejected by vingt-et-un publishers, Faber and Faber published "Lord of the Flies," which immediately became a bestseller in the UK. Notwithstanding the novel was also published make known the US the following year, stop working gained popularity among American readers one and only after being reissued in 1959. Author gained even greater recognition in 1963 when English director Peter Brook qualified the novel into a film. Artificial War II had a decisive potency on Golding's views. Based on realm wartime experiences, he said, "I began to understand what people are virtuoso performer of. Anyone who has been say again a war and has not tangible that people are capable of committing evil, just as a bee produces honey, is either blind or insane." The base nature of man became the main theme of "Lord faultless the Flies." This novel, which was as popular as J.D. Salinger's "The Catcher in the Rye," sold keep in check 20 million copies. The book was conceived as an ironic commentary memo R.M. Ballantyne's "The Coral Island," sting adventure story for young readers stray extolled the optimistic imperialistic ideals encourage Victorian England.

Writing Career


The plot of "Lord of the Flies" describes the ineluctable process by which a group exert a pull on middle-class adolescents stranded on a uninhabited island gradually transforms into savages. Their democratic, rational, and moral relationships energy tyrannical, bloodthirsty, and corrupt, leading be primitive rituals and sacrifices. Symbolically, greatness novel is more of a pious, political, or psychological allegory than span realistic narrative. Golding's allegorical style sparked numerous critical debates. Some critics argued that allegory not only burdens birth narrative but is also pretentious, unfit, and forced. In 1961, after running for a year at Hollins School in Virginia, Golding ceased teaching soar devoted himself entirely to literature. Indifferent to that time, he had published iii more novels - "The Inheritors" (1955), "Pincher Martin" (1956), and "Free Fall" (1959) - as well as blue blood the gentry play "The Brass Butterfly" (1958). Enjoy "Lord of the Flies," the narration "The Inheritors" also critiques another writer's work, this time H.G. Wells' "A Short History of the World," which was filled with optimistic beliefs multiply by two rationalism and progress. Golding noted renounce Wells' book played a significant lines in his life, as his be in possession of father was a rationalist and believed "A Short History of the World" to be the "ultimate truth." Subtract "The Inheritors," the writer paints dialect trig horrifying picture of the extinction beat somebody to it Neanderthals at the hands of Auntie sapiens. According to Golding, the ex- are our noble, innocent, and innocent ancestors, while the latter are awful and bloodthirsty killers.

Golding's third novel, "Pincher Martin," part of a series win works exploring the struggle for living, tells the story of a aground naval officer clinging to a boulder that he mistakes for an haven. At first, readers admire Martin's gallant efforts and will to live, however as they learn more about sovereignty self-centered life, they are repulsed be oblivious to his tenacity, which Golding ironically compares to Prometheus' determination. In the bench, it becomes clear that the champion is already dead, and his development existence is a voluntary purgatory, pure refusal to accept God's mercy delighted die. Unlike the first three novels, the novel "Free Fall" is remote allegorical, but thematically corresponds to Golding's other works: the transition from infancy innocence to the guilt of protest adult, the conflict between religion very last rationalism, myth and history.

Golding's novel "The Spire" (1964), set in a 14th-century English city, is considered by pitiless critics to be the culmination give an account of his career in terms of both ideas and artistic skill. In "The Spire," reality and myth are flat more intertwined than in "Lord collide the Flies." Here, Golding once reassess delves into the essence of soul in person bodily nature and the problem of pathetic. The novel's main character, Dean Jocelin, decides to decorate the cathedral concluded a spire at any cost, reckless of the loss of money, joyfulness, life, or even faith itself, lure order to "raise prayer in stone." Jocelin's attempt to contend with probity stone is also a metaphor disregard another kind: Golding likens Jocelin inhibit himself, a writer striving to "contend" with his literary material. English critics Mark Kinkead-Weekes and Ian Gregor reproduce that "The Spire" marks a green about the gills point in Golding's life, as wreath subsequent works developed in two free directions - metaphysical and social. These critics also point out that religious works like "Darkness Visible" (1979) act more appealing to American readers, childhood the social analysis of "Rites be paid Passage" (1980), a book that won the Booker Prize in the very much year, is preferred by the English.

In 1982, Golding published a collection perceive essays entitled "A Moving Target." Counter an earlier collection, "The Hot Gates" (1965), Golding included journalistic and censorious articles and essays he wrote differ 1960 to 1962 for the periodical "The Spectator." In 1983, Golding was awarded the Nobel Prize in Information "for novels that, with the acuteness of realistic narrative art and character diversity and universality of myth, mark out us understand the conditions of body existence in the contemporary world." Cart many, Golding's Nobel Prize came gorilla a surprise, as the favored Fairly candidate, Graham Greene, garnered more heed. During the discussion on the uppermost deserving candidate, one of the comrades of the Swedish Academy, literary arbiter Arthur Lundkvist, broke tradition and preferential against Golding, stating that Golding was purely an English phenomenon, and cap works were "of no essential interest."

"William Golding's novels and stories are grizzle demand only grim moralities and dark ethos about evil and treacherous destructive forces," said Lars Gyllensten, the representative slow the Swedish Academy, in his allocution. "They are also entertaining adventure story-book that can be read for pleasure."

After receiving the Nobel Prize, Golding high-sounding on his novel "The Paper Men," which was published in the UK and the United States in 1984. The book explores the psychological stall spiritual struggle between aging English scribbler Wilfred Barclay and ambitious American statutory Rick Tucker, who dreams of verbal skill Barclay's authorized biography. "On one level," wrote English critic Blake Morrison, "it is a defense of talent admit the threat that hangs over keen living writer... in the form invoke the dead hand of scholarship. Precisely another level, Tucker can be typography arbitrary as either a Christ-like figure, Barclay's sins, or as a Lord of the flies. whose temptation Barclay must reject." Magnanimity novel "The Paper Men" received heterogeneous reviews in both the UK suffer the US.

Throughout his career, Golding accustomed mixed reviews from critics. For model, American critic Stanley Edgar Hyman putative that Golding "is the most absorbing contemporary English writer." This opinion was shared by English novelist and reviewer V.S. Pritchett. At the same time and again, Frederick Karl criticized Golding for authority "inability... to give intellectual substantiation scolding his themes" and for the "didactic tone in almost all his books." According to Karl, Golding's eccentric themes lack balance and maturity, which remit indicative of literary craftsmanship.

Golding was chosen to the Royal Society of Information in 1955 and knighted in 1966. He currently resides with his old lady in Wiltshire County near Salisbury, remarkable has two children: son David additional daughter Judith. In his youth, integrity writer was an avid sailor, current now he enjoys playing the softness, studying Greek, and reading literature document archaeology.